The single biggest upgrade to the musicality and quality of my system has been the result of the addition of the Audio Note Kit 1 300B Single-Ended amplifier. I am absolutely thrilled!
A spectacular-sounding 300B, single-ended integrated amp. I loved the experience of building this baby from a kit and the sound is sublime. A huge upgrade over the Manley Mahi/Manley Shrimp combo I had previously.
SOTA Sapphire
Recently upgraded this 'table with new titanium bearing, new, series V springs, new belt and dust cover.
Linn Basik-LVX
It's what I've got. :-)
Ortofon 2M blue
Not much to compare it to but well reviewed at the price.
Bottlehead Seduction
2-tube phono preamp
Music Hall CD 25.2
Beautiful build quality, great sound at the price.
Supra Classic 6.0
Bobby Palkovic of Merlin told me to look for a 9 gauge, stranded copper wire, and this is what I found. It's unique in that each copper strand is plated with tin, to insulate the strand and reduce "skin effect." The result is a cable that is, in Bobby's words, "stupid good," especially at the price. A 3 meter pair with spade connectors cost me $103 with shipping, direct from the distributor, Sjofn HiFi.
Musical Fidelity M1 DAC
Perhaps the single best upgrade I've made to my system, other than my speakers and new Audio Note Kits Kit 1 amp. A steal at the sale price from Needle Doctor, it has lifted the Musical Hall CD player to new heights.
Reference 3A MM De Capo iA
Latest version of this classic monitor. The white Surreal Acoustic Lens in the middle of the main driver is said to improve dispersion and clarity. They sound wonderful. Update, March, 2013: I have upgraded the tweeters to the latest, beryllium tweeters from Reference 3A.
Timrhu, Thanks for the nice thoughts. You know, I wonder how the Kit one stacks up against, say, a pair of Bottlehead Paramount 300B mono blocks and a Bee Pre preamp, I really do. I almost went that route rather than the ANK Kit 1, but I was ready to have a simpler set up and the integrated approach appealed to me. Additionally, even with Bottlehead's Black Friday sale last year, the combo of the two BH kits cost slightly more than the ANK Kit 1, so it was an easier choice for me. Still, I'd like to hear them head to head!
Jetrexpro: Thanks for the good wishes! And thanks for being in the DIY cheerleading squad. I want to build another AN kit one day... maybe one of their DAC's... :-D
System edited: I've updated my system to reflect the selling of my Tuner (hardly ever used it) and the replacement of my Manley Mahi mono- blocks and Manley Shrimp pre-amp with the glorious sounding Audio Note Kits Kit 1, Single Ended Triode amp. Now I need to update my system photo!
Timrhu, Thanks a lot for posting. Yes, I have heard of the diagonal room placement situation. Right now, with the room serving more than one purpose, there's no way I can get away with that. However, I am working toward a situation over the next six months where I get to move my rig into what used to be my daughters play room when she was little. That would then be MY ROOM and I could do with it as I pleased. :-) room treatments, even! :-)
Thank you, Dan, for the good wishes. I'm excited about the end result and, at this point, possibly even more about the process of building the kit. Last time I put a kit together my Bottlehead Seduction phono preamplifier I had a ball doing it. I am actually going to blog the assembly process here.
Frozentundra, Hi. Sorry for the delay.... didn't see your post until now. I lived with Ohm's for about 18 months. During that time I determined that I didn't really enjoy their pseudo-omni presentation. I'd say that it either floats your boat or it doesn't. Some (including me, initially) like that room-filling presentation. I found the imaging vague in a way I didn't enjoy... it's all a matter of taste. (I also suspect my room was way too lively at the time.) Once I determined that stand-mounted monitors worked well in my room with my gear, I'd say eight or ten different speakers moved through my system, including some very highly thought of stuff. But when I heard the 3A's I knew I was on to something I really liked. If you take a look at the Reference 3A, web site you'll find a link to my Audio Asylum review of the Dulcet, which is the "baby brother" of the De Capo, which will tell you a lot about what I prize in the De Capo, too.
Zenblaster, I have thought about subs in the past but have never taken the plunge. My room is multi-purpose and I don't think I can fit any more stereo gear into it! I also have a hunch that the room (which is far from acoustically ideal) would be overloaded by a sub. Besides the De Capo's go low enough to make most of what I listen to sound pretty well fleshed out.
My little Manley set up is kind of a tribute to Audiogon... all of it was acquired used in the classifieds here. The Mahi's are great little amps, and Manley's customer service is stellar. They've even been nothing but helpful to a guy like me who bought their gear second hand, such as transferring the remaining warranty on the units to me with no questions asked. What I'd love to do, although it'll set me back $800 which I don't have right now, is to factory upgrade the Shrimp preamp to a Jumbo Shrimp, which would add a much-desired remote volume control. :-)
The 2m Blue... sounds good to me. It's only the 2nd cart I've ever had on the turntable. I had SOTA install it when I sent my 'table back to them a few years ago for refurbishing and upgrades. The reviews were good and at $199, if I remember correctly, it was within budget.
System edited: I recently upgraded the tweeters in the De Capo's to the latest, beryllium tweets from Reference 3A. Still breaking in but so far they sound a bit more transparent and smoother at higher volumes. More to come when they're more settled in.
Thanks, Jeff225. I am very pleased with it. I think it'd sound even better if I could tame some more of the slap echo in the room, but there's only so much "redecorating" my significant other will tolerate. ;-)
Apdoc, Yes, I had the Dulcet before I upgraded, and you are correct: they are extremely special, little speakers. I absolutely loved them. I would say that the De Capo brings the following additions to the table: 1) More defined and authoritative bass response. 2) The ability to go louder without sounding congested or confused (with the caveat that I really don't tend to play my music very loud and my room is not that big). 3) an even sweeter and more open top-end. Hope that helps.
Mapman, Yeah, for the foreseeable future, I'm truly done speaker hunting. The De Capo's continue to get better - more open and musical - as they break in. I'll play a track that I haven't listened to in a couple of months and be struck by stuff I hadn't heard before. The delight is that I'm regularly taken by surprise by how good they are. They are pretty to look at, too. :-) I hope that one of these days you get to hear a well set up, well broken in pair. I would love to hear the top of the line Grand Veena one day... they are supposed to be extraordinary.
Tbromgard, Sorry for the tardy response to your post; I just saw it today for the first time. I've generally been quite happy with the cartridge, although I've never had the opportunity to really compare it with something else. The SOTA is a wonderful turntable, which I had sent back to the factory for some refreshing and upgrades (replaced the suspension springs and the main bearing after 20 years of use) and, at the same time, they replaced the rather ancient Audio Quest cartridge that I had originally purchased with the table with the new one. Right now, I'm not so inclined to replace the cartridge because it sounds fine to me, and also for financial reasons. But mainly, I suspect that putting a better cartridge in that crappy old arm would be wasting its potential. I'm not sure what arm I would move up to, in any case. If I was going to go with anything besides a Linn arm, I would have to purchase a new arm-board for the turntable, which would really begin to run into some money. At times, I've even considered selling the SOTA and going with a turnkey solution like one of the Rega turntables, but I doubt that the turntable itself would be as good a piece of equipment as what I have now. Decisions, decisions :-)
Knownothing, Nice to hear from you, and sorry for the tardy response. I switched to the Supra cable back when I had the Merlin monitors, because Bobby at Merlin recommended a stranded, litz type, copper-based cable, 9 gauge, if possible, and the Supra cable was the only product I could find that fit the bill. Each strand is plated with tin, supposedly to eliminate "skin effect." Bobby at Merlin ended up liking it so much that he now recommends it as his go-to "cheapo" alternative to the very expensive Cardas cables that he recommends normally. I think I do remember liking the current cables more than the audio quest that I had before in any case, both of them are very reasonably priced. Now that I have Reference 3A's, they recommend a solid core, cryogenically treated cable, which is apparently what they use for the internal wiring on their speakers. Their own, branded cables are quite expensive, but I have seen a cheaper alternative that seems to fit the bill but haven't yet had the time and money to try it. As far as I can tell, there is a great deal of synergy stuff in matching cables to speakers, including the rest of the system. Sorry my response is not as useful as it might be.
Okay, this is really dumb! In the picture, what I have under the Dulcet's is a sheet of paper towel on each stand. The reason is that they have this gorgeous, shiny "piano black" finish, and I was afraid of scratching up the bottoms. Reference 3a recommends coupling the speakers to the stands with "blue tack," which I haven't yet had the heart to do But I will, soon. ;-)
Thanks for posting again. Yes, I think you nailed it. There really is something to be said, I think, for the "crossover-less" approach that Reference 3a takes. That, along with the slanted, "time-aligned" front baffle, gives the speakers and immediacy and spatial coherence that is quite addictive. I once read a review where the reviewer said that if you have unlimited funds, you can spend many tens of thousands of dollars and find a speaker that "does everything," or nearly everything. But if you are like most people and have a limited budget, then you have to know what is important to you in a speaker and what you value the most. Some people, the reviewer said, put midrange purity highest. Other people want a robust bottom end and so forth. Some people demand neutrality and "ruler flat" response. For me, I think I have figured out that I will sacrifice some other, desirable qualities if I can get the kind of spatial presentation that makes the music feel "real" to me. A really nice thing about the Dulcet is that it gives you that spatial and ambient coherence along with a shockingly meaty bottom end. This is something I missed, although I didn't know how much,with the Merlins, as stunning as they were in other respects. It's why I think I could probably never live with something like the "baby" Harbeths -- they are only rated down to 75 Hz. Yes, it may very well be that the Ohm 100's were just too much for my room. I suspect that the acoustics of the room were just too lively for anything omnidirectional. The sound staging of the Ohm's was expansive and "swimmy" but image specificity always felt vague in a way that I found frustrating in the long-term.
The Merlins are terrific speakers oodles of detail and resolution. Plus,you get time and attention from Bobby P, who is surely one of the finest people in the audio business.
But (usual disclaimers, "in my room, with my equipment, to my ears ")the Dulcets have more satisfying bass, "disappear" much more completely and are spatially coherent in a way that's pretty breathtaking. They paint a sonic picture of a performance event in a way that's hard to describe, but is so immediate and energetic that listening becomes "fun" in a way that makes me want to keep pulling out old recordings to see how they sound. Hope this helps.
System edited: A long overdue update to my system pics and description. Added Musical Fidelity M1 DAC and V-Link to the digital side. CD player's never sounded better and I can also play files through the V-Link from my Mac laptop. Big change: moved to the Reference 3A Dulcet speaker. Hard to describe how tickled I am with these little guys... they are superb!
No, I didn't have Merlin fill the holes; they just didn't show up well in the photos. I listen with the grill covers off, but use the grills for protection of the drivers when, for example, we're dusting or cleaning in the room.
I did add speaker cable info, thanks for the suggestion.
System edited: I have now sold he Unison Unico and gotten my first separates: a Bel Canto S300 power amp and a Manley Shrimp tube preamp. I don't have the words to describe the nature of the sound changes, but overall things sound more open, detailed and airy. Best sounding gear I've ever owned.
I like the blue very much... that is to say, my vinyl sounds great. The problem is that I've never compared it to other cartridges so I can't really comment on its relative strengths and weaknesses. But I can say that it sounds great to me and tracks well.
Thanks a bunch for posting. Yes, it's sounding nice, for sure.
I actually bought the Unico here on A'gon from a fellow who was selling off a second, vacation home system, if I remember correctly. I've never used another amp with the Ohm's, so I've no idea how it sounds relative to other amps. But it'll certainly play much louder than I could ever tolerate in this room!
Also, the fellow who sold it to me was nice enough to toss in two alternate sets of tubes for the preamp section, but I've never gotten around to trying them out to see what difference they might make.
Thanks for the good wishes! The new position gets the right speak a good deal further out from the corner. I'll post an updated pic when I get a second.
